From the archive, 29 April 1924: Vatican gift incenses the Fascists

Friday 29 April 2011 06.41 EDT
First published on Friday 29 April 2011 06.41 EDT

FROM AN ENGLISHMAN IN ITALY

The cloud between the Vatican and Quirinal has shifted to Palazzo Chigi. The Fascist press is very angry at the action taken by the Pope through Cardinal Gasparri in sending a subscription of half a million lire to repair the damage done to Catholic clubs after the elections. They accuse the Cardinal of being "devoid of a Catholic spirit" and his action as "equivocal and highly questionable." The Papal gift has torn a bad rent in the camouflage and given too much publicity to what has been going on, especially as the Papacy is an international institution.

The "Stampa" says:— According to the warning issued by the Fascist press, one duty, and one only, is imposed on all Italians: not to believe their own eyes nor give credence to what they see, hear, and read, but to place blind and reverential trust in the accounts of the "Stefani" agency and what the Fascist press says is the truth.

The "Giornale d'Italia," a Liberal philo-Fascist organ, says in reference to the area of Monza, one of those in which outrages took place:— The elections, in spite of everything, gave the Catholic party 24,000 votes, as compared with 12,000 for the Fascist party. Hence the explosion of incendiarism, devastation, and grave violence to persons, a couple of days' terror, in which not only the members of the Popular (Catholic) party suffered reprisals at the hands of the local Fascists, but also the very flourishing Catholic organisations in the district, which have nothing to do with politics.

The official organ of the Vatican, the "Osservatore Romano," in correction of a good deal of foolish talk, publishes a short paragraph explaining that "the half-million by the Pope is given to repair the devastation of clubs and institutes belonging to the Azione Cattolica, which have nothing whatever to do with the Catholic Co-operatives, etc, belonging to the Popular party, sacked at the same time." But it adds that in making this distinction clear it does not for a moment mean to lessen its condemnation of the violence against those economic institutions, nor the plain duty of those responsible for law and order to see that such damage is made good.

[The 1924 Italian election was the first to be contested under the Acerbo Law, engineered by Mussolini to create a first-past-the-post voting system that gave the winning party two-thirds of parliamentary seats and ended coalition and, effectively, opposition politics. The campaign was marked by widespread Fascist intimidation and violence against political opponents.]